Trey Yesavage and Walker Buehler tried to set the game of baseball back 50 years on Saturday at Petco Park in San Diego. They almost succeeded.
Were it not for some decent relievers ending the game, including the best reliever of this generation, this contest between the Blue Jays and host San Diego Padres very well could have gone down as one of the worst games of all time from a control perspective.
Yesavage started the carnage with a first inning he would rather forget. The second was only mildly better. The first included four walks, a sacrifice fly and two Padres runs. San Diego did it without registering a hit. In the second, Yesavage was a ground ball away from getting out of the inning, but walked three more and gave up a two-run, bases loaded two-out single to Manny Machado before leaving the game after just 1 2/3 innings.
Padres starter Buehler wasn't much better, yielding four runs on three hits and four walks over his two innings. Yesavage threw a total of 59 pitches in his time on the mound. Only 20 of them were strikes.
Jays offense fights back
Somehow his offence found it within themselves to take him off the hook scoring four of their own in the top of the second. The Padres would eventually prevail 8-7, with closer Mason Miller converting his 24th consecutive save situation of the season.
Miller's appearance, and that of set-up man Adrian Morejon, was a nice development in this game. The best back end of the bullpen in the game today saved the night from being collectively absent of any semblance of good pitching.
Missed opportunities
The Jays offence had their shots at the Padres before they got deep into their 'pen but every comeback was answered by the Padres. After taking their only lead of the game in the second inning on Jonatan Clase's second homer in his past four games, the Jays gave it right back in the third with reliever Adam Macko being touched up for two runs to again put the Jays in arrears.
A three-run homer by Vladimir Guerrero Jr., his second homer in three games and the first which has looked at all like the Vladdy of last season for quite some time, evened the score at seven in the sixth inning, but that good feeling didn't last either.
In the bottom of the sixth, Mason Fluharty, the lone Jays' pitcher to that point that was having any kind of consistent success against the Padres, got two quick outs and appeared to have former Blue Jay Ty France set up for the final out of the inning. France, though, battled back to a full count and then smoked a Fluharty sweeper over the fence in deep left for what turned out to be the winning run.
Bullpen depth questioned
It was a night the Jays could have used a dependable innings-eater out of their bullpen, similar to the role Tommy Nance had performed before he was traded to the Minnesota Twins for a minor-league catcher. The deal wasn't so much about getting the catcher, a 21-year-old minor-leaguer named Ryan Sprock, though the Jays claim to have had their eye on him for some time. The feeling was that the Jays had plenty of arms in their bullpen, both in Toronto and at triple-A Buffalo, that could do the job Nance did and provide the versatility in terms of having the ability to be optioned back down to the minors without having to clear waivers. Nance was out of options and did not give the Jays this kind of flexibility. Nance, though, was dependable in the role he had, which was keeping a game where it was, normally a deficit or multiple-run lead in most cases when he was called on. He could have helped in that regard on Saturday.
